Facebook and Instagram users in Britain will now have to pay a monthly fee to avoid being targeted with personalised adverts.
In the coming weeks, users will be offered the choice to pay £2.99/month on web or £3.99/month on iOS and Android for an ad-free experience.
The fee will cover all Facebook and Instagram accounts registered with the Meta Accounts Center, with an automatic charge of £2 on web and £3 on mobile for each additional account.
Meta says that the increased price for iOS and Android users is due to the fees charged by Google and Apple for access to their services.
This comes as a major reversal in strategy for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had previously claimed Facebook would never charge users to remove ads.
Meta claims that the change is necessary due to new regulations from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), requiring users to clearly consent to their data being used in advertising.
That means users who do not pay will be considered as having consented to their personal information being used to target them with adverts.
In a statement, Meta says: ‘It will give people in the UK a clear choice about whether their data is used for personalised advertising.’
Meta will begin to charge all UK Facebook and Instagram users a fee to avoid their data being used to target them with personalised adverts (stock image)
All UK users over the age of 18 will see a notification offering the choice to subscribe to Facebook and Instagram to avoid being targeted with adverts.
Meta says that this notification will be dismissible ‘at first’ to allow users time to consider the choice before ‘a decision is required’.
Users who choose not to pay the fee will not see their service change and will continue to be targeted with adverts as they are now.
However, non-subscribing users will still have the ability to influence their advertisement choices through the ‘Ads Preferences’ settings.
For users under 18, the experience of Facebook and Meta will not change.
Meta claims that, in the UK, age and location are the only pieces of information used to target teenagers with specific adverts.
This major change is particularly surprising given that Mr Zuckerberg has specifically ruled out this exact revenue model in the past.
Speaking before Congress in 2018, Mr Zuckerberg was pressed on whether he would charge users for Facebook not to use their data in targeted advertising.
Users will be offered the choice to pay £2.99 a month on web or £3.99 on iOS and Android for an ad-free experience. Meta says this change comes in reaction to new regulation requiring users to consent to their data being used
Pushing back against these suggestions, Mr Zuckerberg said: ‘There will always be a version of Facebook that is free.’
‘Are you considering having Facebook users pay for you not to use that information?’ Senator Bill Nelson asked the CEO.
To which Mr Zuckerberg responded: ‘We want to offer a free service.’
Meta says that this change follows engagement with the UK ICO over a set of new regulatory requirements.
These regulations require that customers be given ‘meaningful transparency and choice about how their information is used’.
That means users need to be offered a choice whether or not they will allow their personal information to be used in the creation of targeted adverts.
Under Meta’s chosen approach, known as a ‘consent or pay model‘, customers can choose to pay the fee to avoid ads or agree to continue with a free service that uses their information.
An ICO spokesperson says: ‘We welcome Meta’s decision to ask users for consent to use their personal information to target them with ads.
In 2018, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress that Facebook would always be free, specifically ruling out charging users to remove adverts
‘This moves Meta away from targeting users with ads as part of the standard terms and conditions for using its Facebook and Instagram services, which we’ve been clear is not in line with UK law.’
Commenting on the price of the subscription, which will cost up to £47.88 per year for a single account, the ICO says this ‘provides UK consumers with a fair choice’.
The ICO also points out that Meta originally intended to charge UK users a much higher price before agreeing to reduce the costs.
‘As a result, users in the UK will be able to subscribe at a price point close to half that of EU users,’ the spokesperson added.
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